Skiers flock to Marmot as parking lots fill to capacity

Albertans eager to get outdoors and hit the slopes this winter are flocking to Jasper's Marmot Basin and causing the popular ski hill to reach parking lot capacity for the first time ever, says vice-president Brian Rode.

Parking lot capacity was reached on Dec. 28 and 29. It happened again on Jan. 9 and once again this past Saturday.

“That came as a bit of a surprise to us,” Rode said.

Rode says some people have elected to wait in their vehicles, sometimes for hours, for a parking spot to open up.

“We only have so many parking spots available, and once they fill up they're full. We don't physically have anywhere else to park people,” Rode said. “We have not had to turn away hundreds of cars, nothing like that. But we don't know how many people turn away under their own volition.”

In a normal year, visitors would all pile into a car with three or four people inside but that's not happening anymore, Rode said. Instead people are arriving with one or two people per car which has led to an increase in vehicles coming to the hill.

“We knew parking would be a challenge on the busy days but we honestly didn't know what the ratio of people per vehicle would be,” Rode said.

Saturdays are often busy at Marmot and in previous years Rode says staff would “get creative” with parking by having near bumper-to-bumper stalls and even having vehicles line up along the street, thus creating an estimated 150 extra spaces. But in the era of COVID -19, Rode says it's imperative to maintain distance between vehicles.

“We're trying very hard to make sure people have the opportunity to distance themselves from others, and that includes the parking lots,” said Rode.

People have been arriving earlier to ensure they can get parking, and this has also created long lines at ski lifts in the morning. However, Rode said, those long lines are only temporary and there is lots of room out on the mountain itself.

Marmot Basin limits the number of people at all indoor spaces to 15 per cent of capacity. Tents have been set up, including an outdoor pizza station, to help visitors maintain distance and eat outdoors.

Despite not having international travellers in the province, Rode said it's been a fairly busy season, with the busiest day coming Dec. 28 when 3,200 people visited the hill.

“How things are trending is that it appears to be a little busier than an average year,” Rode said.